


here's how

by jaldon



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, i love jessika pava, rebellions are built on memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 11:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12770166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaldon/pseuds/jaldon
Summary: Here’s what the rebellion is: a spark. A spark lights a flame. And a flame burns and burns and burns (it doesn’t stop until it’s burned up everything around). Here’s what the rebellion plans to do: burn.





	here's how

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is my very first work on ao3, i really hope you enjoy it!

Here’s how a rebellion dies: you pull it by the roots. You separate its most important parts. You damage them all. Kill the leader. Destroy its home.

Here’s how the story starts: the rebels _won_.

Here’s how the story ends: the rebels are scattered to the winds. (An island. An unknown system. A new base.)

Here’s how a rebellion dies: it separates itself. (A strategic error)

Here’s how a rebellion dies: it sends its weapon to find another. 

Here’s how a rebellion dies: it goes out with a whisper.

 _But it doesn’t. Don’t you know that dandelions are weeds, too? And what do weeds do? They_ grow.

Here’s what the rebellion is: a spark. A spark lights a flame. And a flame burns and burns and _burns_ (it doesn’t stop until it’s burned up everything around). Here’s what the rebellion plans to do: burn.

The rebels have won, but they know what happens once you win- you begin to fight. They mourn their dead (so many were lost) and treat their wounded (in overflowing medcenters) and pick themselves up and move. _The rebellion is a child dusting off it’s scraped knees and climbing back onto its bicycle._

Rey left Kylo Ren burnt and broken, and Ren did the same to Finn. _You can’t fight fire with fire, or can you?_ At the rebel base, Finn stands and takes four bitter steps. He vows to tear down the First Order and anything it’s ever stood for _if it’s the last thing he does_.

On a faraway planet Rey feels his awakening and _gasps_ \- she feels a weight lifted on her chest (she’s not alone anymore). He’s alive, he’s awake, he’s alright, and now _so is she_.

In the rebel base Finn asks “Where’s Rey?” and in her mind she replies “right here!”

-

A week before Finn wakes, Poe says, “All available squadrons, it’s time,” and they run for their fighters and fly into the starry sky (they don’t hesitate, don’t think about not coming back because they can’t). It’s a battle, a real one, the first since Starkiller and it’s thrilling and it’s dangerous and it’s all they’ve ever wanted. _They’re doing it, they’re doing it, they’re taking down the first order._

Rebels die.

(that’s what happens in a war)

Ships explode.

(no bodies to bury but that was never expected anyways)

Hearts implode.

(Poe Dameron _knows_ that ship and he can’t breathe it was there and then it was _gone_ )

“I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” spits Pava (killing is what happens in a war). “Watch my back, Poe.” Then she’s going into the middle of it all and Poe follows because she asked he’d do anything for his squadron (he’d die for them he _would_ ) but they all have something to live for back home.

They win.

They go home.

Leia calls him in and she takes him in her arms and she says, “I’m glad you made it back,” and he hugs tighter and she says, “your mother would have been proud of you,” and he’s crying sort of. She lets go of him after a while (too long for a general and a commander but just long enough for a mother and son). “You did good, son,” and he nods in thanks and leaves.

Jess is in the mess hall and as soon as he comes in she pulls him into a tight hug (every hug could be their last) and guides him to a table and they sit down. He slings his arm around her shoulder and steals food off her plate. She swats at his hand (they’re _family_ ).

A week before _that_ , Rey balances rocks with her mind and _Luke Skywalker_ is the one teaching her how to do it. (If someone had told her that a year ago she would have punched them for making fun of her) (The force didn’t exist! Skywalker was a children's’ tale!) (She would have been wrong.) Her concentration snaps and the rocks fall. She tries again.

This is a tale of rebellion.

Here’s how a rebellion wins: it tries again.

-

A week before that, Finn dreams. 

A bloody handprint on a helmet. A captured pilot. A masked man. A scared soldier.

He screams in their faces, “I was a child” and thinks of barracks and barracks of children just like him. A soldier in chrome armor tells him to put his helmet on. “Never!” he says. 

“Submit your blaster for inspection,” she says and he points and fires.

(The dream changes.)

He’s alone on Jakku, in a burning TIE Fighter. “Poe?” he says, and then coughs. No one answers. He fights his way out by himself.

-

A week before that is Han Solo’s funeral. (There’s no body.) (There never is.) It’s more than most get.

Leia Organa cries. She cries for her husband, and her mairrage, and her brother, and her father, and her poor mother, and her son, and all of her children who died at his hand (she has more children than the one she birthed) and she cries for herself. 

It’s a moment of weakness, a crack in her shield.

Most pretend not to see.

The same day, they burn helmets, _one for each pilot who died in the attack_ . Poe Dameron says all of their names as the ashes fall and the smoke twists up to the sky. _(There’s so much smoke.)_

They make an altar with the shells of the burnt helmets after the fire has burned out and it says-

_We remember._

(They always remember.) (Poe remembers every single name. Maybe he always will.) (After the funeral he collapses into Jessika’s arms. She remembers too.) (This is what family is for, he thinks, because he barely remembers his mother and father and for her it’s the same.)

And in her quarters, Leia remembers too. She remembers all of her lives, a princess, a politician, a rebel, a mother, a general. So many have died, and she remembers _every one_.

Here’s what rebellions are built on: memories.

Here’s what they remember: everything.

Four weeks later, Finn wakes.

Here’s how a rebellion lives: it _awakens_.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! please please please leave kudos and comments!! thank you! :D


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